


put it on but fade it out

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Series: i wish we had more time (ws!steve trevor) [7]
Category: Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, F/M, For the most part, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, POV Barry Allen, Winter Soldier AU, monster fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 02:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11911533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: Barry cuts the chain on the warehouse again, and steps inside, turns the lights on.Diana’s sitting in his second-favorite chair. “Your warehouse’s security systems leave a lot to be desired,” she informs him.or: Barry Allen's got a killer loose in his city. Diana and Steve tag along to help. (alternatively: how to fight monsters and bond with your badass teammate's fucked-up former assassin boyfriend, a guide by Barry Allen AKA The Flash.)





	put it on but fade it out

**Author's Note:**

> originally this was supposed to be more League-focused (5 members of the League who were like "w h a t" about Diana/Steve), but Barry took over for 18 pages in GDocs. which is hilarious considering all I know about him is stuff from the Justice League trailers and some of the comics. (does the DCAU JL count? like, that's _Wally_ , not Barry, but there's some influence from there seeping in here too.)
> 
> title is from OneRepublic's "Light It Up".

Central City isn’t as bad as Gotham City, when it comes to murderous themed supervillains. Then again, the Flash hasn’t been around for as long as Batman has been.

But, well, still. It’s a point of personal pride for Barry that most of the crimes he stops on his usual patrol are your regular, civilian-level muggings and robberies. Sure, since he’s gotten into the gig, there’s been an uptick in metahuman criminals and themed supervillains, but those attack fairly intermittently.

He’d stayed in Gotham just _once_ and he’d nearly gotten strangled by sentient plants, blown up by wind-up penguins, gassed by a crazed clown, and finally bamboozled by some riddle-obsessed asshole. Batman needs better rogues who don’t end up in Arkham every so often.

So it’s something of a surprise to him when there’s an uptick of missing persons in his city. It gets even more concerning when the missing people start turning up _dead_ , bodies gored and mauled and half-eaten.

This is the latest one they’ve found—a college student missing for two weeks, impaled like all the rest. Something’s taken a great big chunk out of his stomach, and it’s a good thing they cleaned out the maggots in the morgue, because Barry would’ve started puking there and Dr. Kathleen Reyes would’ve had to sacrifice one of her latex gloves for the cause of Making Sure Barry Doesn’t Ruin the Body.

It’s easier to not ruin much when you’ve got the case file. Or—several case files. They’ve officially attributed this rash of murders to a serial killer, someone who seems to like nubile young men and women and keeps luring them into a labyrinth, and someone with a dark sense of humor and a thing for Greek myth had suggested calling him the Minotaur.

Barry cuts the chain on the warehouse again, and steps inside, turns the lights on.

Diana’s sitting in his second-favorite chair. “Your warehouse’s security systems leave a lot to be desired,” she informs him.

Barry stares at her, then at her former assassin boyfriend running a finger over the spines of his books. He says, on the verge of a hysterical shriek, “What are you guys doing in Central City?! Couldn’t you call ahead before you _broke into my warehouse_?”

So sue him, he’s had a long week.

“I’m pretty sure we texted ahead,” says Steve, now bending down to check out Barry’s shelf of sci-fi comics. “Hey, when did they adapt Tarzan into comics?”

“I couldn’t read it,” says Barry, pulling out his phone. “I’ve been kinda busy.” Busy trying to figure out how the hell does he stop a serial killer from taking more victims. “Have you guys—Have you guys even seen the news out of Central City lately?”

“Uh,” says Steve, finally turning to look at him. “There’s news?”

Barry gapes at him. Jesus fuck, why does he have to have those unfairly blue eyes?

“We just happened to be in town,” says Diana, standing up. “I came to help assist a friend of mine in her work as a curator. I knew where your warehouse was, so I figured we’d stop by to see how you were doing.”

“You couldn’t have left a voicemail?” says Barry, a little harsher than he means to. “Because there’s been a case that’s been getting all my attention lately.”

“We did,” says Diana, her brows creasing in worry, and, dammit, now Barry feels bad about snapping. “Is something wrong?”

He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “You guys really don’t know?” he asks.

“Know what?” says Steve, tilting his head and watching him like a hawk. “Whatever it is, it’s got you worried.”

“I think you might want to sit down for this,” says Barry.

\--

“So you have the Minotaur loose on your streets,” says Diana, once Barry’s finished.

He shakes his head. “Not the _actual_ Minotaur,” he says. “That’s just the name the guys came up with.”

“I’d beg to differ,” says Diana, putting the photo of the latest body down. “Where were these people last seen?”

Barry racks his memory, then says, “Some haunted house-slash-maze type of thing, that was why the nickname. But we can’t get a warrant to search there, it’s a public attraction.” Which is strange, he realizes. How’d it suddenly become so popular, even with all these disappearances? Someone must’ve seen that link too, surely.

“So how old are these victims, usually?” says Steve. “Would it be unusual for this Minotaur to prey on someone outside that range?”

“Late teens to mid-twenties,” says Barry, “but the guy’s been known to prey on people in their early thirties, if they look younger than they are.” He sighs, says, “Twelve missing persons so far, and nine of them turned up dead because of this guy.”

“He needs two more,” says Diana.

“You’re not seriously saying—” says Barry.

“I am,” says Diana. “This is the same Minotaur that Theseus slew so long ago. His preference for youth, his method of killing, this labyrinth he uses—there isn’t any doubt.” She stands up, points at another picture: the latest victim, grinning at the camera, arm slung around his friend. Behind them is the latest attraction in Central City: the Labyrinth of Horrors. “Who built this? Do you know?”

“I have no idea, it kinda just sprang up,” says Barry, racking his brain and coming up with nothing. That’s concerning. So is this talk about the Minotaur, from the myths, like he’s the same guy as the Minotaur they’re going to track down. “Come to think of it, I don’t actually remember seeing anyone _building_ a creepy maze, it’s like one second that was an empty lot and the next there’s a maze and some old dude manning the ticket booth.”

“Okay, who’s sponsoring it?” says Steve.

“AEA Industries,” says Barry.

“I have no idea what that is,” says Steve, shaking his head. “But I’ll check them out after this.”

“After what?” says Barry.

Diana smiles, humorlessly. “Putting an end to this horror,” she says. “We’ll need a sizable amount of yarn.”

\--

It’s way past one in the morning when Barry and Diana’s special formerly brainwashed assassin friend walk up to the Labyrinth of Horrors, all suited up and ready to go. In the daylight, the sign’s just kitschy and gimmicky, with dorky little bats and skeletons surrounding the letters printed in a bloody font.

In the dead of night, though, with no one around? Not even the creepy old dude manning the booth?

“I feel like I’m in the opening of a horror movie here,” Barry says.

“You’re not going to die,” says Steve.

“No offense,” says Barry, “but that’s coming from the guy who stabbed me one time, so I’m not exactly comforted.”

“You’re just never going to let me live that down, are you,” says Steve, with a huff, looking up at the rooftop of a nearby apartment building. Barry looks up as well, sees Diana’s silhouette crouched down, ready to jump. “I told you, I don’t do that anymore.”

“It left an impression on me,” says Barry, looking back down at Steve, who’s fishing out a very big bag of yarn from a cheap purse. “Hey, you got the shiny yarn!”

“Next best thing to Ariadne’s string that we have,” says Steve, tying one end around a lamp post. He holds the ball of yarn out to Barry and says, “Feel like scouting ahead, or—”

Barry eyes the sign above them, then the entrance. “I want to point out that I’ve barely ever done battle before,” he says. “That time with Steppenwolf was like, the first time. If you guys are right, and I’m not saying you are because I’m not too sure, there’s a half-bull half-man monster in there.” He gestures to his suit, a flash of red in the darkness. “I think I’d rather put off playing matador for as long as possible.”

“Yeah, that is kind of a great big _eat me_ sign,” Steve agrees, but he pushes the ball into Barry’s hands anyway. “I’ll take point and keep an eye out,” he says. “Just hold on to that, that’s how Diana will track us.”

“She’s got an unbreakable lasso,” Barry points out, as they step into the creepy labyrinth, unrolling the ball as he goes. “I’m just saying, we could use that.”

Steve makes a face, shakes his head. “What’s she going to use to tie the Minotaur up with, yarn?” He draws his gun, holds it ready and pointed at the ground, finger off the trigger. It’s a marked difference from when Barry last saw him with a weapon.

Barry still tenses, a little, and imagines that the stab wound in his side twinges a little.

“Okay, point,” he says. “But you and Diana are assuming it’s _the_ Minotaur. It could just be a really fucked-up person, there’s no shortage of those.” Barry should know, after all, he works in forensics.

“With horns and a penchant for cannibalism?” says Steve. “And a specific MO?”

“Greek myth’s popular,” Barry argues.

“Allen,” says Steve, “maybe a hundred years ago, before I was—well, a hundred years ago I’d have agreed. But you run faster than a speeding bullet, Diana lifts tanks like they’re maybe heavier than a pocketbook, and Superman is an alien who died and then came back from the dead to fight other aliens.” He shrugs as they come up on a corner, and he presses up against the wall and motions for Barry to do the same.

“So?” Barry hisses, lowering his voice as he presses against the wall. Something hard presses against his back. He’s pretty sure it’s a plastic tarantula, this place has loads of plastic spiders.

“So Greek myth coming to life shouldn’t be too hard to believe,” says Steve, voice barely above a whisper as he peeks around the corner. Then he pivots and raises his gun at something.

Barry’s heart might actually stop. It does not, thankfully, but it’s a close thing.

Steve lowers the gun, and Barry relaxes just a little. “Clear,” he says.

Barry steps closer. “You say that like just because I was able to gain powers through an accident in the lab, and Superman is an alien with a different biology from ours, I’m supposed to believe the Greeks were right?” he asks, incredulously. “Because I can prove the former two, but you can’t prove the last one.”

“Diana,” says Steve.

“Diana’s a metahuman,” says Barry, glancing sideways at the inert mummy, half-expecting it to jump out at any moment and attack.

“Diana’s an invincible Amazon who carries a magical unbreakable lasso and she’s probably a few thousand years old at least,” says Steve, stepping carefully along the path. “I don’t know. From what I hear time’s a little weird on Paradise Island.”

“Diana’s _how old_ ,” says Barry, his voice pitching higher.

He walks right into Steve’s arm, held out as if to bar his way.

“I’m hearing something,” he says, quiet.

“I’m not,” says Barry, confused.

Steve puts a finger to his lips as they come to an intersection, and a dead end in front of them. Barry looks back to check on the mummy, and swallows.

It’s not there anymore.

“Uh, Trevor?” he whispers.

“What?” says Steve.

“There used to be a mummy back there.” He points at the display they passed, now conspicuously lacking a mummy.

“Oh,” says Steve, then, “ _shit what the hell_ ,” because said mummy all but blindsides them from behind the corner, tackling Steve to the ground.

Barry drops the yarn, backs up and _charges_ forward, grabbing hold of one of the mummy’s bandages and _yanking_. The mummy screams as he pulls it away from Steve at inhuman speeds, then throws it into the dead end.

“Get down!” barks Steve. He fires twice, aimed at the mummy, and Barry sidesteps the two bullets before he skids to a stop behind Steve.

The bullets slam home, and the mummy disintegrates into dust and toilet paper.

Barry picks the ball of yarn back up and dusts it off.

“Mummies are Egyptian, right?” he says.

“This is a labyrinth of horrors, right?” says Steve, picking up a moldy strip of toilet paper and making a disgusted face, nose wrinkling up. “Whoever made it wasn’t worried about accuracy so much as getting the Minotaur fed.”

Barry shakes his head, then looks left, and right. Both paths are lined with cobwebs and plastic spiders and god knows what else is lying in wait for them. “This is insane,” he mutters.

“I’ve been hanging around Diana for months, this is just Tuesday night,” says Steve. He looks between the paths laid out before them.

“We should split up and look for clues,” says Barry, jokingly.

Steve whips back to look at him with wide eyes. Barry holds a straight face for a second, before he breaks into a laugh.

“Your _face_ ,” he gasps. “Oh my god I wish I had a camera for your _face_ —”

“You asshole,” says Steve, shaking his head. “For a second I thought you were _serious_.”

“Nah, I just couldn’t resist the _Scooby-Doo_ quote,” says Barry.

The space between Steve’s eyebrows wrinkles up in confusion. “What?” he says. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that.”

“Oh my god,” says Barry. “You’ve never heard of _Scooby-Doo_?”

All he gets in return is a slightly confused look. It’s like watching a puppy stare up at him, waiting for him to make sense again. It’s a joke, it’s got to be.

Steve just shakes his head. “I’ve been a little busy over this past century,” he says. “Is it a book?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” says Barry, a whole world of opportunities opening up before him. “It’s a cartoon. It’s probably the oldest cartoon I know about, it’s got a talking dog and a bunch of meddling kids.” He grins. “It’s _hilarious_.”

“Is it on Netflix?” says Steve, and for the first time Barry can actually see why Diana seems to like him so much. There’s a curiosity there, buried underneath the wariness and weariness and stabbiness, that could match Diana’s own, just as hidden under her dented optimism.

“I guess,” says Barry, with a shrug, “but there’s a ton of the old shorts on YouTube, I can pull them up when we’re out of here.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” says Steve, and just like that he’s holding his gun ready once more, motioning to the path on the left and aiming the gun at whatever might come out screaming at them from the path on the right.

Inevitably, something does.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” says Barry, “is that a _vampire_ —”

\--

An hour into their expedition, and Barry tallies up their injuries and losses: Steve’s on his second clip and is limping now, Barry’s pretty sure he’s got a bruised rib from when Frankenstein’s monster lumbered out of the shadows to drag him in, and they have a fuckload of bruises. Like, _so many bruises_ , Barry is pretty sure they’re going to hurt like a motherfucker in the morning.

Also there’s a werewolf turning to dust at their feet, so.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Barry swears.

“I think it bit me,” says Steve, mildly, all his weight on one foot.

Barry inches slightly away from Steve. “Feeling any different?” he asks, casually. “Like. I don’t know, the moon looks nice and full tonight?”

Steve stares at him, then glances up. “Uh, no,” he says. “I mean, I guess it does?”

“Do you wanna do anything about it?” Barry continues.

“Is this your way of asking me if I’m a werewolf,” says Steve, looking back down at Barry and shaking his head, his mouth pulling upwards in a little half-smirk. “Because that vampire scratched you up pretty badly, I should be asking you if you feel a little more bloodthirsty than usual.”

Wonder Woman’s formerly brainwashed assassin boyfriend is kind of an asshole. Barry had figured that much out after he’d given him a box of snails on the way to Brussels, this is just—more confirmation.

“Just answer the question,” Barry huffs.

“Not a werewolf,” says Steve. His eyes slide to the left, and he says, “Shit, Allen—”

Barry’s already turning before his last name’s left Steve’s mouth, and he catches sight of _oh that’s the fucking Ring girl_ before Steve barrels into him.

The ball of yarn drops to the ground.

 _Warn a guy,_ Barry wants to shout, except then the creepy dark-haired ghost’s got a hand around Steve’s ankle and is trying to drag him back into the dark, into the display in front of a side door from which she emerged, and Barry sees that flash of sheer panic on Steve’s face.

Barry _moves_ , charges into the Ring girl, and the two of them tumble through the display and there’s a sucking noise and, distantly, someone screaming _Barry_ —

\--

The first thing Barry registers is that there’s dirt and dust in his mouth. He coughs, tries to gasp for air.

The second is that there’s somebody shaking his shoulder and whispering, “Um, hello? Mr. Flash? You okay?”

The third is that he’s crammed into a small space with the three missing persons who are, apparently, still alive. He jerks his head up and scrambles to a more vertical position and away from the kid shaking his shoulder, automatically checking if his mask’s still in place and breathing out a sigh of relief.

Thank god, because he’s pretty sure Victor would never let him live it down if he got unmasked by the very people he was supposed to rescue.

“I’m fine!” he says. “I’m more worried about you guys.”

“Oh,” says the one who spoke, a woman with her hair in something that might’ve once been a mohawk, dark, narrow eyes full of concern. Marisol Punzalan, missing for just three days. “Oh, we’re—we’re okay?”

“We’re a lot more okay than those poor fuckers we were in here with,” says one of the other two, a young man with light brown skin and a mighty frown. Harold Carson, missing for almost a week. “Fastest man alive, huh?”

The third is a young woman with wide green eyes and blonde hair who says, “Oh my god—I think we might actually stand a chance if he’s around.” It takes Barry a second to place her, but it clicks—Dinah Barton, abducted five days ago.

“Stand a what,” says Barry. “And does anyone here know how to pick a lock?”

“Somebody already tried that,” says Harold, darkly. “They got hunted down real quick.”

Dinah runs her teeth over her lower lip and says, “It was—He didn’t stand a chance, we heard him _screaming_ , he wasn’t fast enough, but you—” She swallows, looks at him with hope in her eyes. “You’re the Flash.”

Barry gets to his feet and winces, a little. “How did you all get in here?” he asks.

“Beats me,” says Marisol. “One moment I’m minding my own business and heading to night classes, the next I’m being kidnapped by the blind guy from _Don’t Breathe_.”

“Fucking _Dementors_ when my sister dragged me here,” says Harold. “Swear to god I felt like I was gonna get the Kiss for sure.”

“I went into this maze with my friends and got dragged in here by Frankenstein,” says Dinah, sheepish.

Barry, silently, holds a fist out to her for a fist-bump of solidarity. Dinah stares at him instead and says, “You too?”

“It was the girl from the Ring and she was trying to get my friend,” says Barry, and the weird thing is, he’s not even lying. He kind of likes Steve now, despite the stabbiness of their first meeting. Which is probably what Diana planned when she told them to go in first, now that he thinks about it. She’s much craftier than Barry first thought. “I sort of charged her first.”

“I don’t know whether that’s the most heroic thing I’ve ever heard,” says Marisol, sympathetic, “or the most reckless. But like, man, mad props.”

“Except now you’re gonna die,” says Harold.

“He’s a _superhero_ , Harold, he’s not gonna die,” snaps Dinah. “He’ll get us out and away from that—that _monster_.”

“Superman died,” says Harold.

“He came back to life, though,” says Marisol.

“Yeah, it was a shock for me too,” says Barry, fishing through the hidden compartments on his suit. “Do you guys want a Snickers bar? It’s a little squashed, sorry.”

“ _Please,_ ” says Dinah, making a grab.

“I’m allergic, man, sorry,” says Marisol.

“I have a granola bar,” says Barry, fishing that out too.

At that, even Harold looks a little dazzled. The effort to maintain his angry, cynical viewpoint can be heard when he says, “Do you seriously carry food on you all the time?”

“I burn up a lot of calories,” says Barry, as Marisol plucks the granola bar from his hands. “Yeah, of course I do. Everyone on the League does, honestly, except Cyborg.” Victor, it has been conclusively proven, may not _need_ to eat, but he can eat pretty much anything. Barry should know. Their bet has resulted in him owing Victor like five whole jumbo-sized stuffed-crust pizzas.

Harold stares at him as he pulls out a squished brownie. “Jesus fuck,” he says, and scoots forward to take the brownie.

“So what can you guys tell me,” says Barry as they’re eating, using his best impression of Diana when she’s trying to gently talk someone down from a bad idea, “about the Minotaur?”

There’s a silence, then Dinah swallows and says, quiet and scared, “He’s—He’s big.”

“Not the sharpest tool in the shed,” says Marisol. “He just grunts a lot.”

“Probably ‘cause of the bull-head,” says Harold. “You know, I thought it was fake at first? But then…” He shakes his head, and looks down at his brownie. “There’s just. There’s just no way. Once you see it you just know it’s _real_.”

“And he’s fast,” says Dinah. “But you’re faster. Right?”

“Fastest man alive,” says Barry, summoning up a smirk. He’s glad they can’t see very much of his face behind his mask, because frankly, he’s kind of scared now. “Me and my friends can definitely outrun him.”

“Friends?” says Marisol.

“Wonder Woman and—her backup,” says Barry, just as he hears grunting and angry shouting outside. “That’s them now, I bet—”

And that’s when Steve sails through the air and smacks against the bars. He makes this pained noise, gets slowly up to his feet.

“ _Trevor,_ ” hisses Barry.

Steve whips around, and the relief on his face is palpable. “ _Flash_ ,” he says. “Wonder Woman’s keeping the Minotaur busy—are these everyone?”

“Everyone who survived,” says Harold, a little surprised. “What took you guys so long?”

“A lot of things,” Steve says, cryptically, slipping a lockpick out of his pockets.

“Your friend’s eyes are really blue, y’know,” Marisol says.

“Oh, trust me, I’ve noticed,” says Barry.

“Uh, thanks, I guess,” says Steve, blinking at them like a confused puppy. Then he kneels down and starts fiddling with the lock.

Barry waits ten seconds. Then he says, “You know you can just yank that off, right?”

Steve stops picking the lock and says, “Oh, that, I keep _forgetting_ ,” because of course he does. A hundred years of brainwashing and torture would give anyone memory problems. Poor guy.

Then he yanks the lock off the door like it’s made out of paper and tosses it aside, and Barry amends that to _poor tough guy_.

They hear a yell. It sounds like Diana shouting for some help.

“I’m gonna back her up,” says Barry. “You get these kids out of here.” He fishes around in his suit’s hidden compartments once more, comes up with two candy bars and a squashed fluffy cupcake.

“I am _twenty-four_ ,” says Harold, offended.

“How do you keep those in your suit?” says Steve, sounding shocked. “How do you know they’re not expired?”

“It’s a trade secret,” says Barry, loftily. “And I check every day.” He jerks a thumb over to Marisol, Harold and Dinah, who are all three squinting at Steve like they’re not quite sure what to make of him, though Marisol seems to be eyeing him up with a lot of interest. “Just follow the yarn and remember to feed them.”

Steve takes the food off his hands, glances worriedly to where the battle must be taking place. “Don’t get killed,” he says to Barry.

“Aren’t you worried about Wonder Woman?” says Harold.

“She’s _one person_ ,” says Dinah, worriedly. “How can one person fight that—that _thing_ for this long?”

“I’ve seen her flip a tank,” says Steve, in tones of awed reverence, “I know she can handle a bull-headed monster. I’m more worried about Flash here.” He jabs a finger at Barry’s chest, and adds, “He’s much squishier.”

“He’s speaking from personal experience,” says Barry, because he’s never going to let Steve live down the stabbing _ever_.

Steve rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, then says, “Okay, you three, with me. I’ll keep you guys safe while Wonder Woman and the Flash fight the Minotaur.”

\--

The Minotaur is eight feet tall, ripped as all hell, and trying its damnedest to murder Diana.

Barry has to shove Steve right out the door before he speeds back into the fight, because Steve had turned for a moment and looked torn and, well. He’s sure he’ll forgive him later.

Probably.

Okay, maybe after the bruise heals.

Hopefully Barry _survives_ to be forgiven, because wow, the Minotaur, when pissed, is strong as hell. Barry’s back is probably a mess of bruises now, and he shakes off the disorientation from getting _thrown into a wall_.

“Are you all right?” says Diana.

“Iris is going to kill me,” says Barry, contemplatively.

“You’re all right,” says Diana, shaking her head. “The survivors, Steve—”

“They’re out,” says Barry, getting to his feet.

Diana looks at the Minotaur. It’s eight feet tall, it’s got beady little red eyes, it’s stamping a foot like it’s just raring to kill them, and its horns scrape the ceiling. Barry is a little bit terrified, as any sane person should be.

Diana says, coolly, “Let’s finish this, then.”

\--

There’s an explosion.

“Duck!” Steve yells, pulling the three survivors back behind a corner as the ground _shakes_ with the force of the explosion. Dinah makes a strangled, terrified noise, clinging to Harold who swears at the sound.

Marisol grabs hold of Steve’s arm. “Oh!” she says, blushing faintly. “What’s going on?”

As if in answer, there’s a final, primal scream off in the distance.

Harold’s eyes grow wide as saucers. Marisol’s grip on Steve’s arm goes from appreciative to uncomfortably tight. Dinah whimpers.

Steve’s free hand goes to the knife at his belt. He keeps his other arm, the one with Marisol clinging on like an octopus, held out to keep the three kids back, and goes still, breathing evenly, settling into a stance.

The Minotaur does not appear. Instead, Barry whips around the corner, lightning-fast and slightly singed. “Hey guys!” he says.

Steve relaxes, and says, “Where’s Wonder Woman?”

“She said something about talking to her uncle about his security policies and told me to go on ahead,” says Barry, with a shrug. “I didn’t know she had an uncle.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about her,” says Steve.

Harold is the first to say it: “You mean it’s—over? It’s dead?”

“It’s not getting up any time soon, that’s for sure,” says Barry, tiredly. “You guys should get to the police station. Your family and friends are pretty worried about you.”

That sets off a small avalanche of swearing and frantic requests for a cellphone. Steve offers his, a cheap phone that he can flip open with a flick of his wrist, but everyone gives him horrified looks like he’s just kicked a cat in front of them.

“I haven’t seen a flip phone in _eight years_ ,” says Harold. “What the fuck, man?”

“Not even my _lola_ uses a Nokia,” says Marisol, marveling at the phone. “I mean she still has the oldest iPhone model, but. Well. _Still._ ”

“You are such an old man,” Barry says.

Steve elbows him in the side, immediately regretting it once he sees the flash of pain across Barry’s face, even under the mask. “Just tell me what your friends’ numbers are so I can let them know you’re alive,” he says.

They give him the numbers, and he punches them in to tell them that, yes, Marisol is alive and she’s right here if you want to talk to her Mrs. Punzalan, yes, your roommate Harry’s not dead he’ll pass the phone over to him, yes, Dinah’s here and she’s okay, shaken but alive, yes you can come pick them up at the police station, yes he is an officer of the law.

“Officer my _ass_ ,” scoffs Harold, as Steve flips his phone closed with a practiced ease and tries not to feel slightly disappointed about the lack of impressed faces.

That’s when Diana turns the corner, and Steve’s breath hitches in his throat.

“Oh,” says Barry, “ _man_.”

\--

Diana turns a corner, her armor scarred from battle and her hair wild, and Barry’s eyes flick from her to Steve Trevor, professional spy and formerly brainwashed assassin.

That’s how he gets treated to the sight of Steve’s unfairly blue eyes going wide and focusing completely on Diana, all the tension sliding out of his body for a second, his mouth doing this funny little thing where it twists into a small and slightly goofy smile.

Barry looks at Diana, sees her smile back too, eyes going all soft and twinkly. He has not ever seen her wear that look in her armor before. Ever.

He’s seen _married couples_ less in love than these two.

The bridge of Marisol’s nose wrinkles up. “So I guess he’s not single,” she says.

Harold nudges her hard in the side and says, “Stop _eyeing him up_ , woman.”

“Nope,” says Barry, clapping her on the back. He has to head back to the precinct, change clothes, give condolences, talk to Iris, but for now he watches the three survivors talk, basking in their relief in being alive, and every so often glancing at Diana and Steve, orbiting around each other like celestial bodies, in each other’s gravity.

\--

They meet back up at the warehouse, afterwards, the sun just beginning to rise above the horizon, the sky lightening.

“So,” says Barry. They’re sitting on the rooftop of the warehouse now, all three of them, legs dangling off the edge. Another day, a brighter one, is here.

“I’m not going to say it,” says Diana.

“I will,” says Steve. “Told you so.”

Barry bumps his shoulder, affectionate. This is a good day, he tells himself, even if he keeps cycling back to Harold snapping, _fastest man alive, huh?_ Even if he keeps thinking of the people in the morgue, dead too young. Even if—

“Barry,” says Diana, snapping him out of his thoughts. He looks up, to see understanding in her dark eyes. “You can’t save everyone, sometimes. Even if you’re a faster man than most.”

 _What’s the point of it if you can’t, though,_ Barry wants to shout. It’s on the tip of his tongue when Steve says, “It’s—not great, we know. It sucks. But you do what you can, y’know? And—you got those three out, that matters. More than you might think.”

“What about the others?” says Barry. “They’re not—They’re dead because I didn’t get there in time. I _should’ve_.”

“ _Should’ve_ will not help you,” says Diana, with the voice of someone who’s learned this lesson the hard way. “Learning from your mistakes is one thing, but dwelling on them will only hurt you in the long run.”

Steve’s eyes cut from the sunrise to Diana, then he looks down and bites his lower lip, as if keeping himself from saying something. Instead he just breathes out, fiddles with his sleeve.

“Easy for you to say,” says Barry.

“Harder to put into practice,” says Diana, offering a humorless, tired smile. “You will lose people, and you will find yourself dwelling on what you could’ve done, what you should’ve done. It will always be hard to do so, but—it does help to forgive yourself.” Her gaze flicks to Steve for a moment before it returns to Barry, and she breathes out a sad sigh. “But as you said, it is much easier said than done to do so.”

“Look on the bright side,” says Steve. “There’s one less killer roaming the streets—or, okay, hanging around a creepy maze—and the survivors are back with their families and friends. Hell, there are _survivors_ , that’s already a win in itself.”

“Yeah, but now there’s a whole mystery to unravel,” says Barry, resting back on his palms. “Like: I checked last night, there’s no record of this labyrinth until it shows up one day. And there _should be_ , because if there’s one thing you can’t do in this city, it’s put anything up without filling out paperwork in triplicate.” He sighs. “Circuses hate us.”

“Magic,” says Diana.

“ _Why,_ ” says Barry.

“You get used to it,” says Steve, with a shrug.

“What we need to find out is who went to all this trouble to place the Minotaur within your city, and to add all those things that attacked you,” says Diana. “You mentioned an old man at the ticket booth. What did he look like?”

Barry opens his mouth, then closes it when he realizes—he _can’t remember_. And this isn’t just him being forgetful, because when he tries to recall more details about the man, even just the faintest description besides _old_ and _male_ , they slip out of his grasp, like someone’s purposefully dangling them just out of his reach. “I—have no idea,” he says.

“Helpful,” says Steve.

“More than you might think,” says Diana, frowning. “This is a magical working of some kind—a veil, I believe, much like the veil on Themyscira that kept it from the eyes of the world of man. Only instead of _hiding_ , it just makes people forget details.”

“So kind of like an Invisibility Cloak,” says Barry. “Except not really _invisible_ and more _not special_.”

“Couple that with the Labyrinth, those monsters, and the Minotaur, and we may be facing a sorcerer with a great deal of power,” says Diana. “My uncle warned me about this possibility, but that they set up shop in _your_ territory—that’s no coincidence.”

“AEA Industries,” says Steve, suddenly. “They sponsored this Labyrinth, didn’t they? We’ll need to check them out. Know anything about them?”

“Uh,” says Barry. “They do construction materials, usually. They’re fairly new, they’re one of the companies that sprang up after Lex Luthor got arrested and LexCorp went down hard, snapped up some LexCorp contracts here in the city.” He pauses, glancing between Diana’s stormy expression and Steve’s wrinkled brow. “They’re not connected beyond that.”

“Sure about that?” Steve asks.

“Buddy, me and Victor checked out a fuckload of these companies ourselves,” says Barry. “A lot of them really are just that opportunistic.”

“What else?” Diana prompts. “If you and Victor dug into AEA Industries?”

“They’re run by someone named Donna Milton,” says Barry. “She’s pretty mysterious, we didn’t dig up much on her. But then we mostly just focused on if she was connected to LexCorp.” He breathes out, looks up at the sky. “I can load up the info we found into a drive before you guys have to go.”

“That would be appreciated, thank you,” says Diana. She looks out at the sunrise, at the sky growing light. “You did all you could. Sometimes it’s not enough—but you had a victory today. That matters as much as your failures do.”

Barry swallows back his first reaction, the words meant to illustrate just how badly he failed those people in the morgue.

Because Diana’s right, and so is Steve. Because when he got to the precinct he saw Harold hugging his roommate and crying into her shoulder, saw Marisol leaning, exhausted, into her mother’s embrace, saw Dinah surrounded by friends and family, all of them relieved of her still being _alive_.

That’s a victory, in itself. A small one when compared to the fate of the world, but still. Three people went home today.

And maybe that’s not enough. Maybe Barry’s failures in this case will always weigh heavy on him, the bodies in the morgue making appearances in his worst nightmares.

But right here, right now, it’s enough.

Diana says, “Do you want to go see the exhibit on late Roman statues? They’re fascinating.”

Steve brightens up, says, “Yeah, there’s that new one you restored, right?”

“Nerds,” says Barry, fondly.

“Says the lab technician,” says Steve, bumping his shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> I think there's a semblance of plot now?
> 
> EDIT: [THERE'S FAN ART NOW!!!!!](http://infinitypeggys.tumblr.com/post/169102139921/diana-turns-a-corner-her-armor-scarred-from)


End file.
